Who needs chocolates and roses?

Jeff called and said he hoped I wasn't expecting a dinner out and flowers (I wasn't since we've got his boys and my two kids and NO ONE'S getting anything romantic with all that going on), because he's got a special Valentine's Day present for me....

OK, so this is a picture of another version of our new (very used and slightly smelly) 1998 Starcraft Venture. Ours is sitting in storage down in the Ozarks. Pictures of ours will come in the spring when this bad boy gets put on the road. See how the name is SOOOOOOOOOO much cooler than the actual object? I'm totally going to say "Make it SO, Number One" and "Engage!" every freaking time we leave town with this thing. (Yes, I'm a total Star Trek dork) Besides, I'm marrying a man who is, in fact, NATURE MAN and this piece of metal and canvas puts that one more layer between me and all that great outdoors crap. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for it. The last few times we went camping we survived horrid winds, floods and bug infestations. I can be a couple of steps ABOVE the dirt and creepy crawlies in this thing. I like the great outdoors, I just really, REALLY like coming back INSIDE from it as well.

In my mind I'll be Elizabeth Zimmermanningly knitting as we camp our way across the USA (or across parts of Kansas and Missouri anyway). Yes, I know she spent her camping jaunts with a piece of canvas and cooking on a fire on a rock. This is about as nature-girl as I get. Since we're getting closer to buying our land in the middle of tick-hell country, this will allow me to stay in something where the thousands of critters trying to eat me alive will have a little more obstacles to get through while we stay over on the weekends working on our land. I'd buy stock in a bug spray company soon, people. The sales are going to SKYROCKET.

I've totally lost my sock knitting ability. NOT ONLY did I knit one smooshy sock on 64 stitches in my normal pattern but then knit the 2nd one on 60 stitches and only realized this AFTER turning the heel, but I totally screwed up the sock I picked up to make myself feel better about the first screw up. Cripes! I knit socks as my "when the world is getting too hard and I need something to knit without thinking" projects. Now I can't even think my way through them? Nice. So, it's nothing any NORMAL knitter would worry about. Just us entirely-too-anal ones. Yes, I KNOW the smooshy pair are only one rib off (K3,P1) but it makes my brain bleed to see how big the size difference is. I'm going to frog the 2nd one and reknit it. Put it away for later, picked up the fun and bright and cheery STR yarn and cranked out a sock on 64 stitches in 3X1 rib, just like usual. Then apparently, I forgot that half of 64 is actually 32 stitches, knit the entire foot with 32 pattern 3X1 rib top and 36 stockinette stitches on the bottom. Then knit most of the toe as if I knew how to count, saw I somehow had 4 stitches more on the top than the bottom. Frogged it back to the starts of the decreases thinking surely I must have over-decreased on the top EVEN THOUGH the pretty line of decreases looked just right and KNIT IT AGAIN and ended up with 4 extra stitches. At least this time I figured it out while trying to get the stitches lined up back on the needles. I frogged back a little farther, reorganized the stitches so they're evenly placed around and knit up the toe. It looks just fine and fits loverly. I've even written down notes to tell me when to do the "pattern element" aka "screw-up-fixer" so the 2nd one matches the first.

I think I'm going to get going on a colorwork hat. Maybe something complicated will be easier than my usually easy stuff.

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

PS--I avoided all barf, Joey got better very quickly and I even sat down next to Jeff's ex at one of the basketball games last weekend and explained that, shoot, with having to get a real job now I just won't be able to take care of her sick boys every time she needs to dump them and run let us spend extra quality time with them. Shoot. I think I was blunt enough that she got the picture. I have no problem with helping out, but it was getting a bit much.

You know what? I'm totally excited about my V-Day present. I'm gonna ROCK the camping out thing now.